Chew with his prized collection. On his right, a 1904 issue by Jardin Zoological D Acclinacao of Portugal; on his left, an 1890 issue by The Malay Peninsular Exploration Syndicate. The spread in front of him includes bonds belonging to the same series issued by the Qing government of Imperial China to finance railway construction. As a reflection of the different origins of these scrips, they were issued in the various major currencies of the major powers at that time: In pounds, marks, roubles, francs and the US dollar.
Each day, billions or possibly trillions of dollars’ worth of assets in the form of stocks, bonds and currencies change hands across the world. These days, the transactions are all done electronically. The assets appear only as digits on the screens of buyers, sellers and brokers in between.
At least until the start of the current millennium, these financial assets were traded using “scrips”: pieces of paper certificates acknowledging the bearer’s ownership of these assets. Each bond scrip would contain information such as the principal amount, the “coupon”, the due date, the banks involved and, of course, the country or company issuing those scrips. In the case of stocks, each share scrip would indicate information such as the owner of these shares and the quantum of shares represented by each piece of paper.
Indeed, from the 19th century onwards, as global trade and finance grew rapidly, scrips, not cash, represented the ebb and flow of international finance across oceans and involving multiple parties — until electronic systems took over two centuries later and turned them obsolete overnight.
Even though they have lost their functional value, bundles of these scrips can probably still be found within the archives of banks, brokerages or share registrars. Chew Sutat, who has spent almost his entire life breathing and living finance and who has witnessed the transition from “scrips” to “scripless”, believes that there are plenty of such bundles here in Singapore too, albeit forgotten by most.
He is hazarding a guess that his personal collection of scrips of more than 460 and counting, is probably more extensive than anyone else’s here in terms of country of origin and richness and depth of history.
This activity of collecting scrips has a term of its own: scripophily. “It is an obscure hobby which combines several interests that I have always had: History, exploration, travel, financial markets and inadvertently, investing,” explains Chew in an interview with Options.
The scrips in Chew’s extensive collection originate from Angola to Algeria and from Congo to Cote D’Ivoire — and that’s just in Africa. He owns numerous more pieces from other parts of the world: Malaya, China, Panama, Vietnam and the US. Holding these finely illustrated pieces of financial certificates in his hands - especially during this period of travel restrictions — had become a way for him to “vicariously satisfy” his unfulfilled wanderlust.
The oldest scrip in Chew’s collection was from 1827: a 100-franc bond issued by Société D’ Exploitation De Phu Quoc in Vietnam. On the other hand, the newest batch is a handful of share certificates of infamous US companies, all from 2002. One is from Enron, the energy trader that went bust spectacularly because of accounting issues; there is also Playboy Enterprises, publisher of the iconic magazine, and Worldcom Inc, which went bankrupt in 2002 following massive accounting fraud.
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CLOB and Tsars
Chew grew up surrounded by scrips. As a little boy, Chew was a regular at the office of his father, a remisier. The dealing room of the then Pacific Union brokerage was where he spent hours and days at a time. His first job, meanwhile, was in the custody department of DBS Bank. Along the way, some of these scrips handled by Chew became key moments of financial history.
Notably, old-timers would recall the Central Limit Order Book (CLOB) saga some three decades ago, when the regional bull run would come crashing spectacularly with the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997. Officially quoted in Kuala Lumpur, shares of many Malaysian companies were also traded over the counter in Singapore via the CLOB system and figured heavily in many a local punter’s daily trades.
Savvier investors would try and arbitrage the price difference of the same counters quoted in Singapore and KL. In September 1998, former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad shut down CLOB in the name of capital control, hurting thousands of retail investors in the process.
Chew recalls how with just days to go before everything was frozen (and these CLOB scrips became worthless pieces of paper), some investors were still taking the risk of trading them in the fire sale. Instead of selling and salvaging whatever value they still could, these punters bought up scrips here to sell them across the Causeway. It wasn’t clear how successful they were.
At that time, Chew did not appreciate the full significance of the scrips even though worthless CLOB scrips were lying around in abundance. He kept just one as his sole memento of that era: a single share certificate of MBF Capital, which has since been restructured into today’s MBF Corp.
Just a few years before CLOB, when Chew was still a student at Oxford University, he visited the stately offices and dining rooms of storied names that built the finance world as known today: the Flemings, Warburgs and Rothschilds. Just like how royalty hung elaborate tapestries on the walls of medieval castles, framed scrips were displayed in these offices. “I always found more interest in some of these majestic scrips hung for display on the walls, and less so the serious art collections,” he says.
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Chew himself would come to own one such piece. He won an investing competition and the prize, sponsored by Citibank, was a cancelled but framed US$1,000 West Shore Railway Company bond certificate from 1918. This railway company went bust the same year the bond was issued.
To Chew, scrips are a fascinating window into the history, countries, companies and tycoons of that era. These were the people who dared to make the big bets. Those who won earned their fame while those who lost, disappeared into oblivion. “Each bond or stock tells much richer stories of the booms and busts of exploration, industrialisation, and the politics of the day,” he says.
Financing infrastructure and construction was a pretty common theme for many of the scrips Chew owns. Besides US railways, he has scrips showing how Russia’s Tsar Nicholas borrowed to expand his railways across Siberia to Central Asia. Others depicted the financing needed for monumental projects such as the Panama and Corinth Canals.
Old history, new value?
As the Internet came into being and speed became the difference between making and losing money, scrips faded into oblivion and ended up being a relic. Sensing this shift, Chew made it a habit to seek out speciality shops and flea markets in London, Paris, Barcelona, Hong Kong or Shanghai, to sieve through them and pick up “a souvenir or two”. He buys regularly from various online dealers too.
As he dwells deeper, Chew became more discerning. He drew from expert sources such as a 1983 publication “China’s foreign debt 1865–1982”. This landmark compendium by German author Wilhelm Kuhlmann chronicled the various issues of China’s foreign debt over the time period indicated in the book title. This period covers the waning years of the Qing Dynasty, when the European powers (and the US and Japan) carved up choice parts of China, sending the country deeper into the abysmal.
To fund damages or repatriations of all kinds, the Qing government was forced to borrow huge sums of money from Western banks. It also took on huge loans to finance railway construction, which benefitted the Western contractors first, and then the Western merchants.
Such scrips were issued on behalf of the Qing government by foreign banks such as Deutsche Asiatic; HSBC London; Banque Indo-Chine and Banque Russo Asiatiques. While these scrips were elaborately designed and almost pieces of art, they are reminders of a bygone era China today has vowed would never happen again.
Interestingly, these century-old China scrips played a part in inspiring Chew to pay more attention to his collection. He admitted this hobby took a backseat in the years when the demands as the then senior managing director of the Singapore Exchange exceeded most other activities — until an unexpected reminder from Donald Trump.
In 2019, the Trump Administration, as part of its trade war with China, wanted to revive century-old claims on Chinese bonds held by Americans. These bonds were issued either by the Qing government or the Nationalists who overthrew the Manchus in 1911. When the Communists assumed power in 1949, they refused to honour the debt.
Critics have charged that China had defaulted on these antique bonds selectively. It did, however, honour some of the debt held by British investors as part of the 1997 handover of Hong Kong, for one.
In the unlikely event that China honours the debt, some of the pieces of paper Chew hold may be far more worthy than what collectors would be happy to pay for as a collectible item.
Supply, demand and more
According to Chew, the fundamentals driving the value of a scrip boil down to the economics of demand and supply. A close comparison might be the similarly “geeky” hobbies of collecting stamps or coins or currency notes.
Specifically, scrips still in mint condition, with full coupons, unclipped, tend to command a higher value than similar scrips with all the interests due collected. (In the age before interests are automatically credited into the investors’ bank accounts, scrip holders collect their interest by bringing their scrips to the banks to have their coupons printed on the same sheet of paper “clipped”, which gave rise to the term “clipping coupons”.
“Scrips signed by famous or noteworthy personalities, ranging from Confederate generals in the US to Qing or Republic ministers in China, or one of the Rothschilds (or two) would help,” says Chew. If not, scrips with printing errors, reissues, or a small single-digit number (denoting a very early issue of the series), or “8”, the widely recognised symbol of fortune in this part of the world, would raise the appeal in the eyes of certain buyers too, he adds.
Scrips that come as a complete set are more valuable too. For example, Chew holds the 1911 Imperial Chinese Government Gold Loan series — quite likely one of the last issued by the dynasty as it would be overthrown later that year. The new rulers, the Nationalists, had similar need for funds: Chew owns the set of 1913 Chinese Government Reorganisation Gold Loan as well.
Sell, keep, or exhibit?
What plans does Chew have for his collection? If there is sufficient interest, he would like to organise an exhibition, arranging the scrips according to different themes such as Imperial China, Colonial Africa, French Indochina, South East Asia, Exploration and Railways. “Perhaps if I could ever afford to move into say a shophouse, I could host a private museum rotating different themes,” he quips.
However, Chew has to properly curate the collection first, without which, the finer details and the context of each of these scrips cannot be fully appreciated. “Each piece has a story to tell, not only of the company but sometimes the registered owners listed,” he explains.
Initially, Chew figured he should have more time for this hobby after he “retired” in late 2021 from a hectic corporate life at a ripe old age of 49. Instead of spending all his time sipping Chateau Lafite Rothschild and the likes, Chew found himself taking on a growing list of non-profit and advisory appointments.
Come Aug 1, he is to take over as chairman of Community Chest; he is also pro-tem chair of SGListCos, a newly-formed association of Singapore listed companies; he runs his own consultancy Shan De Advisors, and he has his weekly column with The Edge Singapore “Chew on this” where he unleashes his thoughts on deserving markets and companies.
What if someone comes along and makes Chew an offer for his collection? Is there a number he won’t say no to? “I am a trader by nature. I am not sure, really,” admits Chew. “If the sale is for an auction for charity or a philanthropic cause, I would more likely consider than just a commercial sale per se.”
Chew estimates that within his collection, the various Imperial Chinese scrips probably command the highest value. Another jewel is the framed 1899 piece issued by Chemins De Fer Ethiopiens to finance the construction of Ethiopia’s railways under the modernist Emperor Menelik II. “It captures the spirit of wanderlust, history and adventure and art deco all in one piece,” he explains.
However, he is certain there will be at least one piece that he won’t let go of, no matter the price: the MBF Capital transfer certificate from the CLOB era with his name on it. More than any other scrips in the collection, this particular piece marks his life in finance. “I will keep this for sentimental reasons,” he says.
Shares of Standard Bank of South Africa, Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China, and Chartered Bank. In 1853, The Chartered Bank by Royal Charter was founded in London. It was renamed The Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China after it started operating in Bombay, Calcutta and Shanghai in 1858, and Singapore and Hong Kong in 1859. In 1862, nine years after The Chartered Bank, The Standard Bank was also founded in London. It was renamed Standard Bank of South Africa between 1883 and 1962. In 1969, Chartered Bank merged with Standard Bank to form the Standard Chartered Bank, popularly known today as StanChart.
Long before the Bloomberg terminal or Yahoo Finance: A weekly market update of the pricing of bonds, stocks and commodities, published by broker James Wetenhall, circa May 8, 1827.
The Yankee contingent: Submarine cable operator Global Crossing, broker and investment bank Merrill Lynch, telecom operator WorldCom, power generator Dynegy, and energy trader Enron Corp. Despite their relatively young vintage as marked by these scrips (circa 2002), none of these names today exist as an independent entity.
A Rs 1,000 Bank of Bengal share certificate issued in 1876. What makes this scrip interesting, lies overleaf. This scrip had changed hands at least 10 times as indicated by the 10 stamps bearing Queen Victoria’s famous silhouette, marking tax paid to the government with each change of ownership. That’s where the term “stamp duty” originates.
